Crossing to Isla Monserrat, April 27th 2008.

In the morning we got up early to do a long crossing. We had talked to an outfitter several days before and listened to the weather forecasts from the Yachties on the VHF radio every morning. The winds we had seen the last two days were supposed to be gone and we hoped for calm air and water. Generally this is what we saw. We paddled the 12 mile crossing from the southern tip of Isla Danzante to the northwestern tip of Isla Monserrat in only three and a half hours. Around the rocky point we landed on the first beach we could find, a long sandy one. While taking a break for lunch, I hiked back along the rocky point and found it to be an interesting place. The shore seemed to be made of volcanic rock that had been carved into bizarre shapes. A yacht sailed into the cove in front of the beach about the time we landed. A dingy was launched and two people rowed ashore to another spot on the long sandy beach. They didn’t come to talk to us, just to land and comb the beach for shells.

The forecast of no wind held long enough for us to make the crossing, but during lunch a strong wind from the north came up. Don Fleming convinced everyone that if we were going to make it around the northeast corner of the island we should get going soon. The trip around this corner of the island was stressful for some members of our group. There was nothing for hundreds of miles north of us with lots of distance for the wind to fetch up waves. We traveled down the east side of the island rejecting one beach after another until we settled on one that was good enough to spend three nights. We needed to spend three nights here because I was going to go off on an adventure by myself for two days.